Nobody has ever been able to control Riley Moss — least of all his parents.
Mark Moss is a longtime elementary school principal, and Beth Moss is a professor of nursing at Mercy College in Des Moines, Iowa. They are the type of folks who show up 15 minutes early to everything, and they prefer their son clean-shaven.
Off a football field, though, Riley will tell you he’s arriving somewhere in 15 and show up in 30. Or, really, anytime. In college, Beth tried to get him to stop walking around in skintight jeans with chew in his mouth. Kid, you’re representing Iowa. But the more she pushed, the more he pushed back. First came a ‘stache, and then a mullet. Now he sports a scraggly beard in Denver. Beth hates it. She also knows she can’t change it.
But Riley listened after the worst game of his life.
In 2018, he started at cornerback as a true freshman at Iowa despite his unrefined football IQ. His athleticism was that good. Beginner’s luck ran out in November, when Purdue attacked him for three touchdowns. After Iowa fell, Mark sat down with his son and implored him: This was a turning point in his career.
You either shy away from it, the father told Riley, or you get back up, and you work just as hard to have that not happen again.
“He chose the latter,” Beth said.
The 25-year-old Moss doesn’t shy away from much in life. Long after that Purdue raid, he’s crafted a distinct identity as Denver’s CB2: Someone who puts his every fiber into every rep and then immediately forgets about the result. He is a goldfish. Safety JL Skinner referenced a different animal.
“Riley like a honey badger to me, bro,” Skinner told The Denver Post. “He like a honey badger.
“He don’t give a (expletive).”
This week, though, Moss remembers. Teammates in Denver’s locker room haven’t seen his brand of quick-twitch chaos change much in the lead-up to Monday Night Football against the Bengals. But last year’s Cincinnati game is “still in his craw,” as his mother told The Post.
“I know he’s preparing for each game, and that’s what he should be doing,” Beth said in early September. “But I know in the back of his mind — that’s the game he’s got circled.”
It was a game, similar to Iowa-Purdue in 2018, that single-handedly shifted an entire fanbase’s opinion on Moss. The 2023 third-round pick had put together a largely solid campaign opposite Pat Surtain II through 12 weeks. Then he injured his MCL against the Raiders, returned after a four-week absence, and was promptly shredded for 12 catches on 16 targets, according to Pro Football Focus, by the Bengals and a matchup with Cincinnati’s WR2 Tee Higgins.
Moss surrendered two catches on seven targets the rest of the year, per PFF. Still, that Cincinnati overtime loss was the lasting image of his second NFL season. He doesn’t spend time on Twitter, where fans take him to task weekly. Over the years, he’s told his mother to stay off social media. Beth can’t help herself.
“I feel like, he’s gonna be always under the microscope — right, wrong or indifferent,” Beth reflected. “Whether he has a good game or a bad game, or he gives up a pass, it’s always going to be, ‘Riley Moss sucks,’ or something. And you can’t change that.”
And by all indications, Moss doesn’t want to.
“He gets the spotlight, bruh,” Skinner said. “He loves that.”
Through three weeks in 2025, Moss has drawn the second-most targets of anyone in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats. Such is life next to Surtain. He’s been burned — take the 44-yard go-ball from Daniel Jones to Alec Pierce on Moss in Week 2. He’s made game-changing plays — take his diving pass breakup against the Chargers that turned into a Brandon Jones pick.
The overall body of work is steady, though: a sub-50% catch rate allowed, and an 80.8 passer rating against .
“I think his head’s on straight,” rookie CB Jaden Robinson told The Post. “I think he’s ready for the challenge.”
The challenge, in Week 4: Revenge on Higgins and the Bengals, who stroll into town without quarterback Joe Burrow slinging it. Moss wants Week 17 of last year “back,” as his mother put it. His teammates on defense, in Denver’s locker room, want to see him get it back, too.
“I’m excited to see him go out and play this week, because I know he’s trying to really get back and — I mean, (expletive), man, excuse my language, but he was hurt last year,” Skinner said. “Like, coming off a knee injury, having him play corner against Tee Higgins, I mean, what are you talking about?”
Moss didn’t make any excuses after Higgins went for 131 yards and three touchdowns on him last year. And he’s the type, as Skinner said, to “flush” such games.
This rematch, though, has lingered.
“The competitor in him wants to be better,” defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers said. “But we all have his back.
“We got his back now, and we know he gonna bounce back from that.”